


Under the Sign

by Azzandra



Category: Original Work
Genre: Fantasy, Gen, Humor, Magic, One Shot Collection, Sisters, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-28
Updated: 2015-06-24
Packaged: 2018-02-27 08:28:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 9,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2686031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azzandra/pseuds/Azzandra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everybody is born under a god's sign, and that decides their abilities and their lot in life. Some people deal with this better than others, but it does lead to interesting complications all around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Roaming Scholars

Nilsa turned the clay bird in her hands a few times. She’d drawn a fine tracery of painted lines over it, delicate whorls along the tips of its wings and tail, jagged stripes for plumage, and faint stylized Vs for the down on its belly. After all the time she spent on it, in the slow hours while she was minding the shop, she couldn’t find anything new to add that wouldn’t just spoil the design.

Dipping the most delicate brush she had in black paint, she made the finishing touch and filled in the bird’s eyes, like two tiny beads.

The paint didn’t even dry completely before the bird came to life, shaking its head and unsteadily tottering along the counter, spreading its wings. It hopped along in circles, and, noticing Nilsa, tilted its head at her.

Then it opened its beak and words poured out.

“Heed me! The wandering children of the scroll path come—”

Nilsa pinched the bird’s beak between thumb and index finger, holding it shut.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Nilsa told the bird as it indignantly attempted to pull loose.

Nilsa produced some wire she’d prepared just for this kind of thing. She passed it through the nostrils of the bird and down under the beak, tightened the loop, tied it closed, and soon enough she had the bird’s beak wired shut.

Then Nilsa sighed, placing the bird away in a drawer. She’d have to get rid of this one, too. All the birds she made always turned out prophetic. It was an inconvenient side-effect of being born under the sign of the Prophetess. The future was always trying to reveal itself to her, through every means possible, to the point that Nilsa felt harassed.

Well, it all came down to practice. She’d make a bird that wasn’t constantly making prophecies eventually, just like she’d managed to train herself into not seeing the omens everywhere she went. She had a lot of success with hedgehogs and cats, at least. Once she even made a tiny dog figurine that didn’t speak at all; it did bark differently depending on who was at the door, but real dogs did that as well, and Nilsa decided to call that a qualified success even if the figurine  _did_  start barking before there was even a knock.

But the birds were giving her difficulty, which annoyed her. Bird figurines sold fantastically well during Solstice festivals, and Nilsa hadn’t produced a single one so far that she could sell. You couldn’t just give prophetic birds to people. That’s how you ended up as the mysterious shopkeeper in people’s stories, and next thing she knew, they’d be swearing up and down that her shop had disappeared mysteriously when they returned to look for it, and who knew how many customers would Nilsa lose to  _that_  kind of talk?

No, she had to find a way to shut up the damned birds before she tried selling them.

As Nilsa brooded over the question, she was startled by the rattle of the bell above the door getting nearly yanked off as the door was flung open and immediately shut.

“Gently!” Nilsa hissed at her sister, who seemed worked up about something.

Welesz looked out through the door’s window before turning around and rushing towards Nilsa in a flurry of blue skirts and frilly shawls.

“Did you hear? Did any of them find us yet?” Welesz asked in a tizzy. “There’s a pack of scholars in town!”

Nilsa inhaled sharply.

“No!” she said. “Where did you hear this?”

“Hear it? I saw it!” Welesz said, putting a hand to her head and wincing. “I was browsing at that new booksellers’ when one of them wandered in. It was awful, he smelled like parchment!”

“He didn’t follow you, did he?” Nilsa asked.

“I don’t think so!” Welesz replied, giving a look over her shoulder. “He asked to see the entire stock! I think he’ll be there for a while. But who knows where the rest of his pack is!”

“Do we hide the books?” Nilsa asked, uncertain.

Their shop, rows and rows of shelves displaying artisanal goods, also had an entire bookshelf in the back with unique manuscripts. Some were even Nilsa’s work, restored carefully and with covers she’d painted by hand and made absolutely sure were not encoded with omens or secret prophecies of any kind.

“No, if we do that it’s going to be even worse when they discover we’ve been lying,” Welesz said. “We’ll just have to hope—”

The bell rang as the door was pushed open. Welesz froze, a chill going down her back.

There was no mistaking the threadbare suit, the messy cravat, the patched up elbows, the glasses, and ink-stained fingers. The sallow, greasy-haired person entering the shop was a scholar. But the coating of white chalk on pant hems and shoes marked this one as one of the Roaming Scholars.

They were the worst of the lot, born under the sign of the Wyswendel, the scholar-god who demanded his children pursue knowledge. The Roaming Scholars interpreted that urging a bit too literally for everyone else’s tastes. Like a swarm of locusts, they passed through towns and cities, devouring everything ever written down. If they couldn’t take it along, they’d copy it, but one way or another, they would bring their bounty back to their ever-starving library, out in the dry, chalky mesa where the scholars swarmed.

And woe befell anyone who tried to stop them.

“Books?” the scholar croaked.

“In the back,” Nilsa said faintly, pointing to the wall where the bookshelves were.

The scholar nodded and walked over to it.

Welesz very quietly walked behind the counter, feeling safer with it between her and the scholar.

“That’s not the same one I ran into,” Welesz said. “Told you there were more!”

“We can’t have scholars in here, they’ll scare off our customers!” Nilsa fretted. “This is worse than that time we had rats!”

“You’re right. We can’t just call the gem cats to get rid of them.”

“We couldn’t call the gem cats even if there was anything they could do,” Nilsa grumbled. “The clay mice I made for them had them spewing ominous predictions for weeks, I don’t think they’d agree to help us again after that.”

“Aw, and just when you got the mice to stop predicting household accidents, too…” Welesz patted her sister’s arm sympathetically.

“So do we, um,” Nilsa bit her lip, and lowered her voice, “ask for payment?”

“Uh.” Welesz glanced uncertainly towards the scholar. “ _You_  ask.”

“I don’t want to!”

“Well, I don’t either!”

They were, therefore, at an impasse. For a few seconds, both sisters were quiet as they searched for something they could use as leverage.

“You smashed my pot of cobalt blue,” Nilsa said, pointing to the spot on the floor where the paint still hadn’t been completely scrubbed off.

“You made me do the books alone last month!” Welesz replied.

“So? I did inventory alone that month too!”

“You never remember to pick up bread on the way home.”

“You gave away my soothsaying windchime!”

“I didn’t know you were still working the kinks out of that one!” Welesz said, and her defensiveness revealed a weakness.

“And old woman Kora didn’t want to know the exact day she’d die,” Nilsa replied, “but there’s nothing you can do about _that_ , now, is there?”

Welesz sighed and crossed her arms. This was as good as admitting defeat.

When the scholar finished selecting books, Welesz wrote up a receipt.

“Money?” Welesz croaked, pale and sweating as she presented the scholar with the receipt.

The scholar turned dry, blood-shot eyes on her, then reached into a pocket and pulled out a clump of banknotes, sprinkling them on the counter as if unable to understand how else to handle money. Welesz picked up the bills and smoothed them out. She handed the scholar the receipt.

The two girls watched the strange creature lurch out of the shop, bent over under the weight of the book stack.

“Next time one of them comes in, you handle it,” Welesz replied.

“There aren’t even any books left,” Nilsa replied.

“Right,” Welesz said. “So you explain that to them.”

Nilsa felt herself grow nauseous at the thought.


	2. Cousin Zizou

If left to her own devices, Nilsa would have been happy to spend her entire life minding her shop and crafting in her spare time. She liked quietly practicing her skills, and customers provided her with all the social interaction she cared for.

Not so much Welesz, who was older, more sociable, and (as she insisted) worldlier than her sister. Welesz liked the shop well enough, but she couldn't stand being cooped up in it all day. She spent most of her time scoping out the competition, figuring out new ways to advertise the shop and chatting up new clients.

Whenever she did have to mind the shop, Welesz would sigh and wistfully imagine all the other things she could be doing instead. She never went out and did those things in her free time, of course, but Welesz found it enough to imagine that she was the kind of person who _would_ do them.

And both Nilsa and Welesz were content with this state of affairs.

This tended to change when cousin Zizou dropped in for a visit.

Cousin Zizou was everything Nilsa and Welesz weren't. He was tall, slim and fine-boned where the sisters were stout and more on the roundish side. He bore a stronger resemblance to them around the face—the same cast to their eyes, and the same dark color—but his hair was curly and always perfectly coiffed, in that casually-tousled way that was currently fashionable among young men, and he was always finely-dressed.

If he handed his card out to someone, it would simply identify him as 'Zizou', written in a ridiculous flourish, and underneath in slightly more sober script, 'Entertainer'. When asked about it, he would flash his winning smile and said he did 'a bit of singing, a bit of dancing'. Inevitably, he was always at the arm of a rich patron or two, and Nilsa privately suspected they found him entertaining in other ways than those he advertised.

Nilsa didn't want to be resentful. Not against family, at least. But she'd known Zizou since he was a dumpy-looking boy with ears too big for his head. When they were little, they made mud pies together, and then fed them to the skittering creatures who lived under temple stairs. They got cherries in exchange, Nilsa always a few more than Zizou because she was braver and got in closer.

That day, when Zizou strolled into the shop with a giggling middle-aged lady at his arm, Nilsa was alone. She resisted the urge to sigh; she did have stock to sell, and there was no point alienating a potential customer from the start.

“Cousin!” Zizou declared dramatically, waving at her.

He was as impeccable as always, in rich earth-toned fabrics, fur trim on his jacket and a lush, striped feather on his hat, all accented by the tasteful glint of sparse but expensive jewelry, set with teal-colored gems Nilsa didn't recognize.

The lady at his arm, by contrast, was much more flamboyant, wearing her fur shawl and beaded jacket like she was new money. She wasn't bad looking either. She had the kind of face made for smiling.

“I didn't know you were in town,” Nilsa said neutrally.

“Touring the clubs,” Zizou shrugged. “Under the auspices of Kasikova, in honor of my twenty-fifth.”

Nilsa had forgotten Zizou had a birthday coming up—the twenty-fifth was an important one, too. It was when most people celebrated the sign under which they'd been born. In Zizou's case, he'd been born under the sign of Kasikova, the Merrymaker. It was no coincidence he honored her by calling himself an entertainer. That was the kind of job squarely within Kasikova's purview.

“And my friend here,” Zizou said, throwing an arm over the woman's shoulder, “is Legarfe. She was born under the Merrymaker's sign too.”

“And you must be Nilsa!” Legarfe said, bursting into giggles. “Not one of Kasikova's though, are you? I can tell!”

“Born under Striva,” Zizou supplied.

“Oh goodness,” Legarfe's eyes went wide. “You're a seer?”

“Non-practicing,” Nilsa said mildly.

But Zizou was already wincing and scratching his cheek like he knew he'd stepped in it.

“How can you be non-practicing?” Legarfe asked, puzzled. “If _I_ could see the future--”

“You'd probably want to put on blinders, too,” Nilsa interrupted.

“But it's such a rare gift!” Legarfe insisted. “If you refuse it, the Weywolder's going to get your soul.” And then she made the sign to ward off the Weywolder, despite being the one to invoke the god's title.

“The more this conversation continues, the more it feels like he already has,” Nilsa replied, smiling sweetly.

Legarfe was confused. Nilsa often thought that smiling while making mean retorts softened the impact, but mostly it just delayed it until people figured out she'd been rude.

Zizou changed the subject quickly.

“Anyway, I know Welesz always loves to drop in on my shows when I'm in town,” he said, and put four tickets onto the counter.

“She does, but last I checked she was only one person,” Nilsa said, peering at the tickets. They were for a swanky club in an expensive part of town. The kind of place you had to go dressed-up, Nilsa thought dourly. Welesz would love that.

“Well, if I give her a ticket, I have to give you one too,” Zizou replied. “And then I thought, what if you wanted to bring dates?”

And of course, if Zizou was honoring his sign, he probably wanted to perform for as many people as possible. Nilsa couldn't blame him for that, even she herself did not have the same inclinations when it came to her goddess.

“I don't date, and Welesz is more likely to find someone at your club,” Nilsa said, but took the tickets anyway. “We'll give the other two away.”

Zizou smiled brightly, because if Nilsa was keeping two of the tickets, it meant she was going to join her sister.

“Thank you,” he said, and booped her nose like he used to do when they were children.

Nilsa made an offended sound and waved him off.

“Don't get used to it!” she said.

After that, Zizou tucked his lady-friend under his arm and they left. Just before they exited the shop, Nilsa heard Legarfe's hushed voice.

“I've never even _heard_ of someone being non-practicing--”

“There are worse things in the world than ending up in the Weywolder's hands,” Zizou replied, and then the door closed behind them, and Nilsa couldn't hear the rest of the conversation.

 


	3. Paints

It was past dark when Welesz finally arrived at The Painting Pot, and she was afraid that they would be already closed for the evening. But the lights were on, and the sign still said 'Open', so she went in.

She stopped in the middle of the shop, seeing nobody there.

“Hello?” she said out loud.

“What the—Welesz, is that you, girl?” someone shouted from the back.

She recognized the voice as belonging to Cyod, the co-owner of the shop.

“I'm here for Nilsa's paints,” she shouted right back.

“Well, come on in the back, I can't really get up right now, and Mora's stepped out for a minute.”

Curious, Welesz made her way to the back room. Cyod was sitting in a chair, his prosthetic leg propped up on another. He had several pots of paint open around him, as well as a bottle of solvent. His brush was dipped in a vivid green paint, which he applied to the wooden leg in intricate grids.

“I thought you wouldn't be coming at all,” he shrugged apologetically. “So I decided I'd get a jump fixing the ol' kicker.” He knocked on the leg with a chuckle.

“I had to come tonight. You know how Nilsa gets when her paints run low,” Welesz replied.

She leaned over to get a look at the leg.

“Touching up the leg?” she asked, curious.

“Ah, a bit. Changing a few details, too,” Cyod replied. “Hasn't been working right lately. Yesterday I tripped on the sidewalk.”

Welesz winced. Cyod was more surefooted than most people Welesz knew with two flesh legs. She couldn't imagine him tripping.

“Mora says it's on account of my gait changing since I painted the leg last. I figure she might be right, my back's not what it used to be and that's bound to've changed the way I walk.”

“Sure,” Welesz agreed, diplomatically choosing not to mention that Cyod had also grown a potbelly since the last time he painted the leg, and that probably had something to do with it too. She suspected Mora remarked on that particular detail too. Cyod's business partner was inclined towards excessive honesty.

“I don't suppose your sister knows anything about working on wood, does she?” Cyod asked thoughtfully, as he moved on to purple paint.

“You know how she feels about that,” Welesz replied.

“Right, right,” Cyod muttered, as he rapidly placed a long line of purple dots along the knee. “Doesn't like working on anything she can't _bake_ into submission.”

“She's very good at clay, though. So if you ever get a clay leg--”

“I'll be sure to hop right over,” Cyod grinned.

Welesz grinned back. She didn't think he ever would. Nilsa didn't know anything about painting limbs, but most importantly, Cyod too firmly believed in the superiority of wood as an artistic medium. If he was going to get a new leg, it would be wood, and he would paint it himself.

“So what does she want?” Cyod asked.

Welesz took out the list.

“A medium pot of Red Empress, a big pot of Trillit Green, and a small one of Wisdom Gold,” Welesz read out. “And she says she wants the Wisdom Gold to be squeezed directly from stone, none of that sieved cr-- stuff.”

Cyod sighed.

“You know, Mora doesn't even squeeze Wisdom Gold for anyone other than Nilsa,” he said. “It's the sobbing, you know. Mora can't stand hearing those rocks sob.”

“I didn't know that,” Welesz said, “but I think this finally explains why Nilsa bought her earplugs as a gift last Holiday.”

 


	4. Off to the Garden

Nilsa didn't seem to take much notice of the elephant figurine after she finished painting it.

Small enough to fit in someone's palm, the elephant was lined in green and pink, little swirls marking its joints, and nimble lines going down its trunk. A waterlily on a pad extended over the entirety of the elephant's back, lovingly rendered in pink and cheerful green, and fringed with touches of gold.

Welesz could tell just by looking at it that Nilsa had been thinking of the elephants of Charlatan's Bend, where the river was cursed and wouldn't allow human boats to pass. The elephants there had taken massive lily pads from the nearby ponds, and in exchange for fruit, they would ferry the humans across on the pads.

In her youth, Welesz and Nilsa's mother Xeka had spent a summer at Charlatan's Bend, selling scarves to passing travelers. Xeka still had stories of that time, and a single hand-painted scarf, threadbare with age, showing an elephant framed by waterlilies. The scarf had been her own creation, of course. Being born under the sign of Adawern, the Artisan, she always kept her best work to herself instead of selling it.

Nilsa's elephant figurine looked a bit like the one on their mother's scarf. It had a certain curl to its mouth, as if smiling knowingly, and Welesz liked it. She took the elephant out of its bell jar and let it trot back and forth across the counter. It poked at things curiously with its trunk, and made whistling trumpeting sounds when it was happy.

“Don't play with the figurines,” Nilsa would chide whenever she saw this, but it was reflex more than anything.

“Of course not,” Welesz would scoff, and then, grinning, she would scoop up the elephant and have it walk across her hands and up and down her forearms.

Nilsa would sometimes catch herself smiling as she watched her sister at times like this, and stop herself right away. It never did any good to get caught up in such things.

But Nilsa watched anyway, quietly and keeping everything to herself. And the elephant, trapped in its bell jar or set loose by Welesz, would sometimes raise it trunk and make the same three notes to signal rain. Welesz did not notice this habit, but then again, unlike Nilsa, she hadn't been looking for it.

On cleaning out day, Vesperida came to collect all of Nilsa's unwanted stock. That month, Nilsa had a basket full of prescient birds for Vess. The awful things with their beaks wired shut would be released in Vess' garden, where they could chatter as much as they pleased.

They'd never be able to escape, even if they could fly more than a few feet. It was a covered garden inside an abandoned building, where wrought iron flowers had grown out of control. Hungry gem cats patrolled the perimeter and jealous roses held court within it. Clay was very low in the hierarchy, so Nilsa knew anything she gave to Vess would be kept well in line.

It felt, however, like Vess arrived unusually early that time, because Nilsa was still staring at the elephant figurine indecisively when Vess walked through the door. She was a striking figure, tall, brown-skinned, and red-haired, with a tendency towards cheerfully colored overalls. Currently she was wearing a bright green pair, with a mismatched purple shirt.

“'Ello, Nilsa,” Vess greeted as she sauntered into the shop. “So, what have you got for me this month?”

“Birds,” Nilsa replied grimly. “They keep making prophecies.”

“No kidding?” Vess asked, a bit impressed. “Well, that's going to keep the Rose Court busy. Anything else?”

“A couple of ferrets,” Nilsa continued. “They, ah... cast dooms. But only on small stuff, like spoons or thimbles.”

“Nice,” Vess said. “If the Rustmonger Knights tame them, it's going to spell real trouble for the Order of the Filigree. Could spice things up a bit. Is that all?”

“Well, no, not much else. There's...” Nilsa paused, looking uncertainly down at the elephant.

Vess noticed the hesitation. She leaned an elbow against the counter.

“You should come visit the garden sometimes,” Vess said, smiling at Nilsa.

“Why would I do that?” Nilsa asked.

“Well, you do provide a lot of the subjects,” Vess replied. “Why wouldn't you see how they're doing?”

“That would defeat the purpose. I give them to you because I _don't_ want to see them,” Nilsa replied, and scowled.

“But if you cared so little for them, you'd just get a hammer and...” Vess made a very expressive whacking gesture.

Nilsa looked appalled.

“Well, you _would_!” Vess shrugged.

“Just take them,” Nilsa sighed, and shoved the basket into Vess' arms.

“Not the elephant?” Vess asked, grinning much too knowingly for Nilsa's taste.

“Out!” Nilsa waved.

Vess laughed.

“See you next month!” she said over her shoulder as she exited the shop.

“Goodbye!” Nilsa shouted.

She could hear Vess laughing all the way down the street.

Nilsa pulled up her chair and slumped into it, crossing her arms and tapping her foot against the ground in annoyance. She spent a few minutes like that, working off anxious energy. There was, in her opinion, absolutely no reason to visit Vess' garden. She had no interest in the petty miniature dramas that fascinated Vess.

Still not fully calm, and on an impulse she couldn't explain, Nilsa reached out and released the elephant from its bell jar. She watched it happily skip along the countertop while tooting its trunk, going back and forth and waving to Nilsa whenever it spotted her.

Eventually, unheeded, a smile appeared on Nilsa's face.

 


	5. All the Little Fishies

Welesz came into the shop through the back door that day, which was why the first sight to greet her was Nilsa with her hands clenched on a broomstick.

“What's wrong?” Welesz asked.

“Vermin,” Nilsa said through gritted teeth.

Welesz was almost afraid the rats were back, but Nilsa did tend to be fairly loose with assigning vermin status, so first she looked around.

There were children swarming just in front of the shop. Walking up to the window, Welesz could see they were surrounding a teacher.

“Oh, the school's passing through!” Welesz remarked, delighted. “You know, I always thought it was cute how we call it a school, like they're little fishies.” She made a wriggling gesture with her hand and giggled.

“Yes,” Nilsa gritted out. “You say that every time.”

Welesz turned around and fixed her sister with a stern look.

“You're not going to scare off the children with that broom, I hope,” she said.

“Of course not!” Nilsa replied, insulted by the mere suggestion.

“The schoolteacher, either,” Welesz added.

“Not in front of the children, of course,” Nilsa said agreeably.

By the way Nilsa's eyes were darting towards the back room door speculatively, however, Welesz decided it was time to take the broom away from her.

The door opened, and the bell above it chimed. The horde of children—there were only about a dozen, but by Nilsa's count that still made a horde—poured into the shop in the wake of the teacher. It seemed they were coming in to get out of a sudden rain.

It was easy to identify the woman in charge of the children by her long, sweeping schoolteacher's robes, rust-red and trimmed with black, but also because Nilsa was already acquainted with her.

Welesz had been educated in the winterhouses, where children and the elderly would be sent to live when the year was fraying towards an end. It was the old ordering of things, nowadays only held to in rural areas, where granite wolves and lantern-bearing spirits still came to extract their payments during winter. The winterhouses were not quite temples, but they operated under the auspices of Zivorreth, the Keeper, and the teachers were often gentle-faced initiates in blue robes.

Nilsa, however, was a few years younger. By the time she was old enough to learn, their family had already moved into the city. In Trillit, there were no winterhouses, and children were educated under the Wyswendel, whose acolytes took the Path to Knowledge as gospel. Teachers in their dreary robes would take the children under their charge from place to place, stopping only where they were welcome, and finding shelter to write or read wherever they were granted it.

For Nilsa, who despised the concept of weather and considered schoolteachers just a step below Roaming Scholars, the experience had not been a pleasant one. Welesz rather thought Nilsa would have preferred the winterhouse, just as Welesz would have preferred to be part of a school.

Alas, here was old Schoolteacher Verinam, with her satchel of books and writing implements, looking as smooth-faced and ambiguous of age as always. She gave Welesz an indulgent smile.

“I hope it isn't a bother,” Verinam said, “but I assure you, the children will not steal anything.”

“If they tried, they'd just get bitten,” Nilsa spoke, as she stood stiffly behind the counter.

There were gasps from the school of children. A few, who had been picking up still-life figurines from the shelves, gently place them back where they belonged.

Nilsa didn't find it too gratifying; Verinam had made no promise the children wouldn't _break_ anything, after all.

“We're always happy to see you,” Welesz said, by which she meant she alone was happy to see them. “I think I recognize a few of the children from last year!”

“That would be right,” Verinam said. She gestured towards the children, all ranging from eight to eleven years of age, all with their own satchels of school supplies and a fine layer of dust on their clothes. “I am always so gratified when students choose to stay and accumulate as much knowledge as possible.”

Nilsa huffed in the background.

“And of course,” Verinam continued, “it helps if their parents are firm and support such an endeavor.”

Nilsa rolled her eyes. She walked around the counter and flipped the latches on the top of it. Removing the front panel revealed a stack of three drawers.

“You won't be staying long, will you?” Nilsa asked.

“Oh, no, dear,” Verinam replied, smiling her indulgent smile again. “We're just waiting out the drizzle in here. We'll be out of your hair momentarily.”

“Mm, well, I guess this'll keep the children entertained,” Nilsa said, and pulled the drawer open.

Swarms of living figurines woke up at the light, and the children, in turn, took notice of them.

It was a matter of practicality that Nilsa only kept the relatively quiet or inactive figurines on the shelves. There were, after all, plenty of other things on the shelves—crockery, boxes, plates, decoration, assorted miscellanea—that the more lively figurines might break.

It was a matter of pure spite that Nilsa was showing them to the children right then. Verinam's eyes widened in alarm as the children swarmed around the drawer, gasping and cooing. Various clay animals, painted in bright patterns, vied for the attention. A little seal flipped over its head; a dog was wagging its tail and hopping; three mice were chasing each other's tails. The drawer was a hive of activity, and the children were clustered around it, elbowing each other for a closer look.

The children would be very difficult to remove for quite some time, and judging by Verinam's face when she consulted her pocketwatch, she was realizing her schedule had just been thrown off for the day.

Nilsa went back around the counter and leaned against it, looking smug.

“You realize,” Welesz whispered to her later, “that none of these kids have any money on them, and Verinam's just as unlikely to buy anything.”

“Worth it,” Nilsa replied.

 


	6. The Autumn Sword

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a bit different, and I'm not sure how in canon this chapter is with the others. All the worldbuilding details are right, but I was not sure while writing it if these events really happened to Welesz.

It was Xeka's opinion in matters of family that, once in a while, the elder members should have inconvenient children foisted upon them, just so they knew how good they had it the rest of the time.

The year Welesz was sixteen, however, Xeka didn't manage to send her children back to the home village to visit Grandmother before late autumn. By that point, it being almost winter, Xeka decided to keep Nilsa in the city and only send Welesz.

This suited Welesz just fine, because she was now too old for the winterhouse, and Grandmother was too young. They would be spending the entire winter in the village, which was something Welesz had never done and hadn't had any hope of doing in the future.

 

* * *

 

The village itself remained familiar. Welesz thought she'd have forgotten at least some things, but she still recognized the exact squeak of the gate to Grandmother's house, the exact bend of the winding village rows, the flat rocks people had toed over the muddy spot in front of the village thane's house.

The people remained the same as well, for all their changes. A taller stature or a thinner face couldn't erase the familiarity of a hand gesture, the exact cadence of the village speech, like a song following the same notes no matter what instrument it was played on.

Grandmother's house still had whitewashed walls, and the tree outside her bedroom window had grown, but remained the same shape.

When Welesz finished her circuit of the village and slipped into the house through the kitchen door, Grandmother was just looping scarves around her shoulders, getting ready to go out.

“Would you like to come along?” Grandmother asked. “I'm going out to the woods to ask the mushrooms.”

Grandmother was always off to the woods to ask things. She was born under the sign of Striva, just as Nilsa, but she was an augur, not a seer.

Welesz was about to automatically say no, but it occurred to her that she wasn't a child anymore. Spirits would not snatch her up for merely stepping foot there.

“Sure,” she said instead, trying to sound less gleeful than she felt. By the way Grandmother snorted, she probably didn't have much success.

They followed the path up to the woods, talking in hushed voices and getting caught up on everything they'd missed in each other's life. Leaves crunched underfoot, but the trees were still full of yellowed foliage.

The woods were strange, in the way woods became strange once enough things happened in them. There weren't any animals that Welesz could see, though birds could be heard fluttering and shrieking overhead. The ground was uneven, misshapen in places where the earth had been overturned by violent forces. Rocks littered the woods, the stony remnants of defunct buildings jutting out of the ground like bleached bones.

There were other things in the woods, as well. Birdhouses in the trees. Small altars, both new and ancient. A stony banister, left intact, though weatherworn, its stairs missing, and whatever levels it connected crumbled to dust. The woods were busy with old things such as those. They were lived-in, long since claimed as human territory, for all that nobody actively lived in them anymore.

The mushrooms were shriveled old things, brown and wrinkly, and forming a ring around the anonymous half-buried slab of an old tomb. Grandmother picked a few, and cut them to slices with her pocket knife. Whatever she saw in their stems and caps, it made her frown in disappointment.

“All their news is old,” Grandmother explained.

Welesz didn't really understand, but she shrugged.

The walk back was just as leisurely as the walk there. It was getting dark, but it wasn't late.

Still, at one point, Grandmother looked over her shoulder and paled. There were lights in the trees, yellow like from an oil lamp.

Welesz caught barely a glimpse of it before Grandmother grabbed her arm and tugged her to a hiding spot. It was a small alcove under the remnants of a tilted archway overgrown by a tree. They crouched down together, waiting to the light to pass.

It was one of the winter spirits, though they couldn't see it clearly for the light. It seemed to come from a lamp; it didn't flicker. instead it was lush and even, like sunlight through a window, like molten gold, friendly and warm, thickly covering everything.

Welesz watched, covertly, where the light fell; at first she thought the shadows were wrong, but they actually belonged to things not there. The outline of old furniture, an even stone floor, something billowy fluttering. Everywhere the light fell, it gave vague suggestions of what was on the other side, where the spirit walked. It was all the spirit could see, and unless Welesz or Grandmother stepped into the light, it wouldn't even know they were there. So they sat in shadows until it passed.

Once the spirit passed, and its light was no longer visible through the trees, Grandmother took out a taper light with phosphorus at the end. Flicked against the tree like a matchstick, it burst into flame, settling into an even green light. They walked in silence as Grandmother held the taper up and lighted the way. They wouldn't meet anyone else, even if another villager was incautious enough to be in the woods at this hour.

It was completely dark when they arrived back at the house. Grandmother turned on all the lamp lights, though if anybody else would have done so, she'd have complained about the waste.

Welesz undressed and sat by the window, looking out into the woods.

“What are they looking for?” she asked at one point.

Grandmother shoved a hot drink in Welesz's hand and sat down by the window as well.

“Their souls belong to the Weywolder,” Grandmother replied, “until they can find their purpose again.”

“No, I get that,” Welesz replied, because she'd heard this stock answer before. “I mean literally, physically, what is the object they're hoping to find?”

Grandmother took a sip out of her steaming mug as she pondered this answer.

“Something on this side, I'm guessing,” she replied.

“So if we had a special light, could we see into their world from this side, and find things there?” Welesz asked.

Grandmother opened her mouth, paused, and then closed it again and huffed.

“You and your questions,” she chided. “Go wash up, we need to make dinner.”

But after Welesz got up, the older woman still sat there by the window, frowning thoughtfully.

 

* * *

 

The next day was cold and sunny, truly autumn weather. Welesz put on an extra warm pair of socks, and went back to the woods.

The woods lacked the familiarity of the village. As children, she and Nilsa would play in them during the summer, but not until dark, not too late or early in the year, and certainly not for long.

The landmarks remained the same as always, except they changed location occasionally. But by whatever error of geography allowed the woods to be so small and yet contain so much, one could always find their way back no matter how much the landscape warped.

The exception was if you hadn't been through a place before, and Welesz realized her mistake quite late. She weaved her way through standing pillars, gaping at their height, when she realized that the reason they seemed like such a novelty to her was because she'd never seen them before.

Anybody unused to the woods would have perhaps panicked at that point, but Welesz was a local. She knew that if you walked long enough, you eventually emerged out of them again right through the spot you entered. It was, thankfully, one of the little quirks of the place.

The terrain was more eccentric in this part, full of ups and downs. The trees were sparser, and crumbled ruins more common. Welesz clambered over the stony outcroppings with some fascination, trying to guess at their purpose. She could identify doorways, an old pedestal, a few stairs here and there. The old foundation of a building jutted its corner sharply out of a hillock.

When Welesz emerged from the ruins and stepped back into a thicker clump of trees, she thought she must be getting closer to the edge of the woods. Birds chattered in the trees, almost right. The air smelled like rotting autumn detritus.

Welesz was not paying attention, and so as she stepped over the roots of a trees, she didn't notice half of them were suspended over a ravine, with a thin layer of earth caught between their gnarled tendrils, deceitfully similar to solid ground.

She fell awkwardly, scraping her leg against the roots, flailing for something to grab, and instead flipping headfirst downhill. She managed to roll as she hit the ground, taking a few dizzying spins to the bottom of the ravine.

When she finally came to a stop, dismayed and aching, she paused for a few moments. She didn't feel seriously injured. Everything was still attached, and though bruised, probably not broken.

Very carefully, she raised her head, looking around.

She faced a bush, its leaves still dark green, though spotted, and its flowers still in bloom. Welesz kneeled up, careful to keep away from the flowers. They were as large as a fist, with thick, waxy petals of a vibrant crimson, melting into purple near the stem.

This was a bush of red empress flowers; beautiful, but highly toxic. Touching them could leave blistering welts on the skin which lingered for weeks. And Welesz had almost fallen face-first right into them.

They were also a sturdy, perennial plant. In the days of old, barbarian tribes would plant them over the graves of their dead. Not so much an aesthetic choice, from what Welesz understood, but because they tended to bury their dead with all their worldly possessions. Red empresses tended to stay in bloom from early spring to late autumn, only wilting when the ground was frozen solid, and even then, it was not unusual for them to endure through snow and frost. They were an obstacle few graverobbers were willing to overcome.

Welesz had come across graves and tombs in the woods before, but never a red empress bush. Red flowers could still mark a grave, but nobody used such a vicious plant as the empress for this purpose anymore. Mostly they were grown for paint pigment.

She got up and walked around the bush, somewhat mystified. Had it grown on its own? Had someone planted it for some other purpose? Surely it couldn't be that it marked a grave.

She hadn't gone all the way around when she saw something on the ground, oddly shaped, but not a root or a rock. She crouched down, trying to figure out what it was, and came to the strange conclusion that it was the hilt of a sword, encrusted with dirt and—yes, jewels, under all the filth. It seemed like someone had driven a sword into the ground right next to the bush, for some reason.

Welesz grasped the sword hilt—it felt strange in her hand, but solid, not like something old enough to crumble to dust. She prepared herself and heaved, wanting to pull the sword out. She fell on her behind for her trouble.

Welesz gave a bewildered look to the hilt in her hand. It did not have a blade attached. Looking at the rust-colored spot on the ground, barely an indent where the hilt had been, it seemed clear what had happened. The sword had to have been there for a very long time.

There was nothing to be done about the blade, but the jeweled hilt looked promising, no matter how ghoulish Welesz felt for thinking that. She took out a handkerchief and rubbed the dirt off the gem on the pommel. It was bluish-purple when it caught the light.

Welesz was still trying to figure out what it might be when a voice spoke to her.

“A merchant would pay a hefty price for the gems, but to a scholar, the hilt alone is priceless.”

Welesz shrieked, and dropped the hilt. Her voice echoed embarrassingly as her heart thumped in her chest.

There was nobody around her. She knew she'd been alone. She would have heard a flesh and blood person coming, or even seen them.

But somebody _had_ spoken, and so she picked the hilt up again and looked around again, this time with different results.

The woman sitting on the stump had to be a spirit. Not a dangerous one if it was out during the day, though. She was dressed in brown furs and vivid green brocade peeking through, soft leather boots and a circlet on her head. The circlet's jewel was the same as the one on the pommel of the sword. Her hair was black and glossy, falling down in ringlets over her fur-clad shoulders, but her skin was pale, more pinkish than brown.

“I startled you,” the spirit remarked neutrally.

“No,” Welesz said, her heart still hammering. “A bit. Maybe. No.”

She gave an uncertain glance to the bush. Maybe it did mark a grave.

“You were buried in these woods?” Welesz asked.

“It is a riddle, is it not?” the spirit replied, amused. “Trees grew, time passed, and one by one, every tree which once stood in the woods where I rested died, and was overtaken by new ones. Are these truly the same woods, then?”

“Yes,” Welesz replied slowly. “I mean, I could shave all my hair off, but when it grows back, it's still my hair, since it grows in the same spot, serves the same purpose, and belongs to the same person.”

The spirit regarded Welesz with unnervingly unreadable eyes.

“I suppose,” the spirit said, “that I meant it more as a metaphysical quandary rather than a riddle.”

“Your material's a bit dated,” Welesz replied.

“I have been here a very long time,” the spirit replied.

“You'd think that would have given you time to think up some new meta-whatsits, then.”

“Such as?” The spirit arched an eyebrow.

“Well,” Welesz settled down on the ground, “say we each have a sword. We decide to switch the blades of our swords, so my blade attached to your hilt and your blade attached to mine now. Which one is my sword now, and which one was yours?”

The spirit's brow furrowed. “...What?”

“Well, I mean, do I get to keep my hilt with your blade? Is that one yours now? Or do you keep your blade, but with my hilt attached now?” Welesz tiled her head. “Or do we just hash it out between us? Maybe we both want the same one, though. I guess we could fight for it, but we'd be weaponless until we solved the issue, so I don't know how that would work.”

“Why would anyone--” The spirit shook her head in disbelief. “You don't know much about swords, do you?” she said in the end.

“I think this one is broken,” Welesz said, holding up the hilt.

There were a few moments of silence. Then the spirit burst out laughing, loud and hard, holding her belly. Her voice didn't echo through the woods, not like Welesz's had when she shrieked.

When she was done laughing, her hair was slightly more disheveled. Her coat had fallen open, revealing intricate lacing underneath. Strange, archaic dress, like something from another time.

“My mistress would have liked you,” the spirit confided, her cheeks red. “She always said the young ones are getting nervier with each generation.”

“Mistress?” Welesz asked.

“She is buried right there,” the spirit said, gesturing towards the bush.

“Oh,” Welesz said. “But then if that's your mistress, who are you?”

“I am in your hand,” the spirit replied.

Welesz stared at the hilt, now confused.

“You were a sword?” she said, bewildered. “But you can't give metal a soul!”

“God, no,” the spirit snickered. “Just as you can't give people a soul, either. It's the kind of thing that tends to crop up on its own.”

“But that's not--”

Welesz cut herself off, sullenly realizing that she didn't know enough on the subject to argue. Her mother brought things to life all the time, small things made of clay. You could do that with things from the earth, like metal and stone. Sometimes even wood, though not if it was already living.

But you couldn't give those things souls, as far as Welesz knew. And Welesz had to admit she didn't really know much beyond whatever she picked up from growing up around artisans.

In the old days... perhaps the crafts were different. Perhaps there was some point to giving a sword a soul.

“So do you have a name?” Welesz asked. “I know sometimes swords have names, like... the Widower, or... Sharp.”

“...Sharp,” the spirit repeated flatly.

Welesz shrugged, flushing in embarrassment.

“Though to be frank, I _have_ met swordsman in my time who would think that's a good name,” the spirit sighed. “But no, my name is Keeper.”

“Strange name for a sword,” Welesz said.

“It is to honor the sign under which I was born,” Keeper replied.

“Oh. Zivorreth? Me too,” Welesz said. “Except I wasn't forged in a smithy.”

Keeper put a finger to her lips. _Shh_.

“Sorry, I forgot,” Welesz said. “People didn't spread that information around back in the day. You were, uh... pretty secretive with your signs.”

“I take this to mean they're far less circumspect now,” Keeper said. “Just as well, I suppose. It means the old dangers are gone.”

“I didn't think swords could be born under a sign too, though.”

“ _People_ can,” Keeper replied. “And I am people.”

“Right,” Welesz said, choosing not to argue. “So what are you going to do now?”

“I don't quite know,” Keeper said, looking at the sky through the branches. “Is there a protocol?”

“Well, the wandering spirits test people sometimes, or kidnap them if they're closer to the afterlife going either way,” Welesz answered.

“Ah, yes. Children and the elderly. Some things truly remain unchanged,” Keeper remarked. “And others?”

“I don't really know,” Welesz said. “I had no idea we had any other type of spirit around these parts. I've never met any until today. I guess they tell bad riddles.”

The corner of Keeper's lip tugged upwards, not quite in a smile.

“I suppose we must salvage some purpose from this encounter,” she said. “Take the hilt of my sword and reforge the blade. Learn to use it in service to Zivorreth, if so needed.”

“That's not-- uh, no offense, but nobody really uses swords anymore.”

Keeper looked offended by the notion.

“What in god's name _do_ they use, then?” she asked. “No, don't tell me. Some insufferable new contraption, probably. Clever and deadly.”

“Pistols,” Welesz started saying, but Keeper waved her off.

“No, no, I said not to tell me.”

“Okay.” Welesz adjusted her position on the ground, feeling awkward for the way this was going. “But not everything has to be an adventure,” Welesz said. “Sometimes people have normal lives, without swordfights, just with some interesting bits happening to them once in a while. Most people do, in fact. They prefer it that way.”

“A strange sentiment from one of Zivorreth's avowed,” Keeper replied, looking curious. “Do you truly not wish for a life of extraordinary endeavors?”

“Is that what your mistress had?” Welesz asked.

“ _All_ my wielders,” Keeper said. “It is a strange thing, but I have always passed through the hands of people called to great destinies.”

“Then there's your problem, you need to start hanging out with more types of people.” Welesz hesitated, her hand curling around the hilt. “Unless you'd like to stay here.”

Keeper considered this as she regarded the bush of red empress with a faraway look on her face.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “It is time to leave. Even mourning must end eventually. There is nothing else left for me here.”

Welesz shrugged and slipped the hilt into the pocket of her coat.

“You'll find other things in other places,” Welesz said. “That's what people do. And you _are_ people, aren't you?”

Keeper gave a slanted smile.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “That I am.”

 


	7. Something Special

It was easy to see when someone entered the shop seeking something in particular. It was in the way they scanned the shelves and shuffled their feet, always about to say something but not quite getting the words out. There was browsing, Nilsa had learned, and then there was _browsing_ , the latter of which might involve some poor soul walking up to the counter with a pleading look on their face.  
  
"Do you have anything special?" they'd ask.  
  
"Lots of things," Nilsa would usually reply, and gesture towards the display on top of the counter, a box with tiny figurines in their little niches, covered by glass that she fastidiously kept clean.  
  
"Oh," they'd say sometimes, or more often not speak at all, only stare into the display.  
  
There was here an uncomfortable moment where a bridge became necessary, some way to match what Nilsa knew she could provide with what the customer felt they lacked. On good days, Welesz would be that bridge, drawing people in with delicate chatter, probing them with innocent questions. On days when Nilsa was less fortunate, she would be alone.  
  
With stiff fingers she would gesture to the figurines, reciting trite pre-rendered texts explaining each one, portents scratching at her hindbrain as she ignored their guidance. Move her hand slightly this way and that, and paths unraveled before her like ribbons disappearing into the distance. Change someone's life with a choice. It didn't matter, it didn't matter.  
  
But the way their eyes lit up when the customer saw what they needed was something even Nilsa couldn't miss.  
  
The little bright dog for loneliness. The turtle painted with perennial flowers for endurance. The pangolin with checkerboard scales for perspicacity. Sometimes, with customers Nilsa tried the hardest to forget, she would sell one of the hedgehogs with spikes made of real needles, or the foxes made of unmelting wax. The bears with felt fur.   
  
Too little to help, she'd think. They didn't improve anything, but sometimes improvement wasn't what the customer was looking for; some just wanted assurance that what they experienced was real, that by buying the figurines they could acknowledge those things that might still be unspoken.   
  
She sold them all in identical cardboard boxes with the shop logo painted on the lid, whether they were meant to help or not.  
  
One day, Welesz arrived at the shop to find Nilsa making labels.  
  
"It's either this or they're on their own," Nilsa snapped. "I'm not explaining anything anymore."  
  
Welesz took Nilsa's irritation in stride, and if she noticed which figurines did not have labels, she did not remark upon it. Not everyone needed to know what the hedgehogs or the foxes or the bears were for.


	8. Escaped Doors Hate Getting Stoned

It was a nice neighborhood to live in, and close to the shop, but occasionally the neighbors proved to be an issue.

"Someone misplaced a door," Welesz informed Nilsa over breakfast. "Again."

Nilsa sighed and took out a kitchen towel. She began filling it with pebbles from a drawer.

"Are they going to be looking for it?" she asked.

"Probably," Welesz shrugged. "They can't find anyone under the Weywolder's sign to help. The stairsmith is the only one they know about but she isn't even due for another two weeks."

"I keep telling people, good hinges aren't a luxury, they're an investment," Nilsa said. "Now how are they going to find it this time?"

"Well, they've been thinking, and since you--"

"No," Nilsa cut her sister off. She tied the towel off and dropped the entire bundle in Welesz's lap.

"I told them, but they still think you should," Welesz said. "The thing with the rocks gets tedious after a while, and I'm pretty sure the doors are getting smarter."

"That's hardly my fault," Nilsa replied. "The only thing they can do to prevent this sort of--"

"Good hinges, yes, yes."

"The doors  _are_  getting smarter. Every time they escape, it takes longer and longer to find them. Eventually nobody will be able to catch them again."

"I'll tell them you said that."

"No."

"Oh, come on. It's not even a real prophecy."

"They have no way of knowing that."

Welesz grinned. "Exactly my point."


End file.
